In an unprecedented dynamic, one of the president’s key intraparty detractors is the former vice president who served at his side for four years.

President Donald Trump will not push for Attorney General Pam Bondi to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate his administration’s management of the Jeffrey Epstein files, as the controversy consumes Congress and his MAGA base.

Trump said Attorney General Pam Bondi had been instructed to “produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.”

As many Democrats call for the release of the files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged caution in a Thursday morning interview. “This is a distraction.

In the past week, the Epstein controversy caused turmoil among some of the MAGA base. Has it affected Trump's approval rating?

"It's perpetrated by the Democrats. And some stupid Republicans and foolish Republicans fall into the net..." President Donald Trump calls the controversy surrounding his administration's handling of the files related to Jeffrey Epstein a "big hoax" and blamed Democrats for fueling the fire of the backlash during a bilateral meeting with the Prime Minister of Bahrain in the Oval Office.

The Trump administration's handling of what are known as the Epstein files has been creating a firestorm within the president's MAGA base. NPR recaps a timeline of the controversy.

No doubt for mainstream-media readers, the Epstein rift came out of nowhere,” said a New York Times reporter. “We had not established how important this story was to a good chunk of the MAGA base.” A political reporter at a rival publication added,